Global mean sea level has been rising. From 1961 to2003, the average rate of sea level rise was 1.8 ± 0.5mm yr–1. For the 20th century, the average rate was 1.7 ± 0.5mm yr–1, consistent with the TAR estimate of 1 to 2 mm yr–1.There is high conﬁdence that the rate of sea level risehas increased between the mid-19th and the mid-20thcenturies. Sea level change is highly non-uniform spatially,and in some regions, rates are up to several times theglobal mean rise, while in other regions sea level is falling.There is evidence for an increase in the occurrence ofextreme high water worldwide related to storm surges, andvariations in extremes during this period are related to therise in mean sea level and variations in regional climate.

The rise in global mean sea level is accompanied byconsiderable decadal variability. For the period 1993 to2003, the rate of sea level rise is estimated from observationswith satellite altimetry as 3.1 ± 0.7 mm yr–1, signiﬁcantlyhigher than the average rate. The tide gauge record indicatesthat similar large rates have occurred in previous 10-yearperiods since 1950. It is unknown whether the higher ratein 1993 to 2003 is due to decadal variability or an increasein the longer-term trend.

That last sentence is a classic. They avoided the obvious answer that the higher rate from 1993-2003 was due to using a different methodology to generate the numbers. The older measurements are from tide gauges, and the newer ones are from satellite altimetry.

They failed to mention that tide gauges don’t agree with the satellite altimetry. They failed to mention that we don’t see much if any increase in rates from tide gauge data. They failed to provide any justification for the switch. They failed to provide any evidence that tide gauges are less reliable now than they were in the last century. They failed to do any verification of the accuracy of altimetry measurements.

This is just another IPCC nature trick – switching measurement systems to create an increase where there is none.

49 Responses to IPCC Sea Level Nature Trick

What I really do not understand about these stories is that, if the warming trend of the planet is indeed catastrophic, you would expect the scientists/authors to be pleased when they get news such as this – that the situation is not as bad as they thought. Instead we get the opposite – they manipulate the data and it becomes – ‘worse than we thought’. Surely this is a sign of a psychological malaise of some sort?

….a EUR 25 million – or USD 35 million – subsidy from the EU that will create a huge research team, “CzechGlobe”…. This single step will increase the funding meant to create climate alarmists in the Czech Republic at least by one order of magnitude. The money is just gigantic. Even if you divide the EU subsidy among the 150 people, you will learn that each of those people may be given the average Czech salary for 15 years…….In other words, the EU will fund 150 people who will suddenly emerge out of the vacuum and who will spread lies about the climate and create the completely flawed impression that the Czech scientists have actually reached a conclusion that there is a global warming worth talking about…..

But with such obvious fraud, so carefully documented by Steve and others, there is no way that it can continue for very long. and there will be a tremendous fallout. No scientific theory has ever been so politicized and hyped for decades. it can not just slowly fade away.
There is no way that the differences between the actual objective records and manipulated satellite records can be kept up for very long.
And there are just too many thousands for scientists that have the background without any financial gain who will be able to see the truth and recognize that the entire scientific establishment has been corrupted by this. the NAS and AAAS and all the other professional associations cannot continue to function as legitimate sources of science information or research when one entire field is completely corrupt. there is just too much overlap in the fields for that too occur.
the situation is MUCH more hopeless for the climate establishment than the Lysenko affair, because there is no totalitarian government that is able to exile or execute any scientist that goes against the received wisdom. Also because of national boundaries and different sources of information, it is all too big and complicated for the lies to keep from unraveling. Lysenkoism barely lasted 20 years with it’s lies and similar failures, though the stalinist regime was able to keep the scandal from erupting due to the same totalitarian measures that had put it in place( largely because people were more concerned with the millions that had been starved and murdered). In today’s world there is no way that can happen.
Once real scientists with integrity start publishing the truth and showing how this fraud was perpetrated there will have to be a major re ordering of the entire scientific establishment, so that all evidence is properly vetted and contested, and pre-ordained conclusions are not allowed.

Steve,
Obviously you have no interest in responding to what I actually write about.
I am taking your views of the science at your word. I do not know enough or have the time to check every assertion you make to find out how accurate they are or how important the context is.

Steve,
please you HAVE to start reading what you respond to.
Of course I care. I just don’t have time. You are amazingly proliferous.
What gossip? Where did that come from? I don’t know anything about anyone here except what they have told me. Damn, does this mean we are going to go into a long meandering journey about gossip?

There are people in religion that think the earth is 6000 to 10,000 years old. There’s a series on a Christian tv channel about it even. Some people must be watching it because it continues to be on for years. There are some people who don’t stop to think. It must be easier to have someone else tell them what to think—they take the easy way even though the man at the head of Christianity said the easy way leads to destruction.

obviously to you and most readers of this blog none.
So are you saying that ALL the scientists that are involved in deciding policy and in determining the peer review literature are incapable of seeing what you see so easily? that seems unlikely unless there is a conspiracy.

Your analogy between young earthers and climate change is even worse than climate change and continental drift.
Flat earthers do not publish in peer reviewed journals. There are people who make scientific sounding explanations about how the world is only 6-10,000 years old. There was even a video on this blog by someone who “proved” the earth is young because ice core rings are not annual but occur multiple times in the year. He pointed out how stupid scientists were for not accepting the obvious truth. Does that ring a bell?

Wow, you totally blindsided me on that one. I am now engaged in hidden ad hominem attacks on you!
Boy you just see through my subterfuge so easily, and catch me flat out.
Here, Amino brings up an even WORSE analogy than the continental drift correlation, in that it doesn’t even have the one factor that you pointed out of established scientists rejecting an obvious truth in favor of orthodoxy, and because I point THAT out to him, that means I am accusing you of being a flat -earther?

No Steve. I will state it plainly for you. Flat earthers contend that the scientific orthodoxy is wrong, and they use scientific sounding “facts” to prove it. Deniers contend the scientific orthodoxy is wrong, and have “scientific” sounding “facts” to prove it.
I was just pointing out that the analogy of flat earthers is closer to continental drift, and to deniers, than to ACC.
I did not make any case for how accurate the analogy is, as there are a great many differences,
but the idea that you somehow took what I wrote to mean that I am accusing you of being a flat earther is quite bizarre.
Upon what would I base that? the fact that someone in a comment posted a video of a flat earther “proving” ice cores only go back a few thousand years?
You do continue to make this interesting, I will grant you that!

Ah, the topic at hand. As I said, I take you at your word when I cannot show otherwise, and I don’t know enough or have the time to check each one of your assertions.

Steve,
I did not contest your claim.
I continue to point out my view on the importance of using all this documentation of fraud and misrepresentation to reconstitute the obviously corrupt scientific establishment. Which is WHY I contested the value and accuracy of the continental drift analogy and pursued the Lysenko analogy.
If you are operating under the assumption that it is just scientists too arrogant and insulated to accept the truth, then once an accurate consistent theory is presented, as happened in the 60’s, ACC will be dropped pretty quickly for the superior cyclic natural variation theory you present here. But that ignores the financial and ideological factors that you insist are the prime motivations. So the Lysenko model is more accurate in my view. You contend that trillions of dollars are at stake, and terribly consequences for the world economy and the well being of millions if not billions of people, if ACC mitigation efforts are initiated at the level that some alarmists want.
that was not the case with continental drift, but WAS the case with Lysenko.
To me THAT is the central issue and the specific details of this post are minor. Which I state again, I am not contending are wrong. If I am distracting from something, I am not coercing you. At it would be much easier and less time consuming if you actually responded to what I wrote. or ignored it. Either way is fine with me. Although I really did enjoy the ad hominem balloon about you being a flat earther you floated!

Cancun Climate Communications Cavalcade Climax
As the orgy of climatic flagellation begins in Cancun the consumers of the main stream media in the UK are braced for further frontal assaults to their intelligence. The long suffering public are currently snowed in by foot deep drifts of climate change in many parts of the British media. Many are worried the media will try to slip one up them as they bend over, with shovels in hand, to clear a path through the climate change bullshit that is covering the nation.

Please welcome extremely dangerous climate changeClimate change scientists warn of 4C global temperature rise
The hellish vision of a world warmed by 4C within a lifetime has been set out by an international team of scientists…….
Moreover, the impacts associated with 2C have been revised upwards so that 2C now represents the threshold [of] extremely dangerous climate change.

And there was absolutely NO political or economic or social interest in the issue of continental drift then . The level of scrutiny is several orders of magnitude higher now and this issue impacts on so many different fields of research from biology to chemistry to physics, that ALL of those fields are being compromised in order for the warmists to maintain their “multiple lines of evidence” mantra. Also continental drift theory greatly expanded understanding of related fields when it did become established. NOT understanding continental drift held back other fields from progressing, and I don’t see where that is happening with ACC. Expanded research has greatly increased the understanding of almost all the related fields because it has opened up many new avenues for research.
Also continental drift was not really a theory until the 60’s because there was no known agency for the process (so it was really only 50 years from the really formal presentation of continental drift as a competing paradigm). And there was no “anti” continental drift theory because It was just assumed that the earth was pretty solid, and there was no real reason to try to form a rigorous proof of that. there was no concerted effort to have more and more research to defend anti- continental drift. it was just assumed. There is little correlation between the two situations of resistance to continental drift and adherence to ACC. Whereas there IS a correlation it is clearly with ACC and Lysenkoism. Both involve an established orthodoxy, using extensive scientific analysis, that as based on ideology. An ideology that mandated scientists to manipulate data in increasingly untenable ways in order to support a theory that was easily demonstrably wrong.

I don’t try to convince anyone of anything. I just try to look at things accurately with the evidence provided. Steven has repeatedly made a correlation between refusal of scientists to accept that continental drift theory contradicted the prevailing view of geography and refusal of climate scientists to accept contradictions to ACC.
I am just pointing out ways the comparison is not valid.
I am an expert in neither so if you have any thoughts on the subject feel free to add them.

I do sometimes too. Michael Crichton did too. You make it sound like Steven Goddard is on an island in doing it. You think Freeman Dyson and Antonino Zichichi are wrong too. But you think the scientists from ClimateGate are right and you find ways to explain away their obvious dishonesty.

No, incompetence is not the word for what you are describing. Only massive fraud. Maybe incompetence at the periphery of the issues, but with all the obvious “adjustment’s” and ignoring of evidence, and misunderstanding of basic physics and logic, the majority of scientists in almost every field that affect climate science have to be involved in conscious fraud.
Again this has very little similarity with continental drift, and MUCH in line with Lysenko.

Amino,
I watched your video of Crichton, and he says nothing that affects what I wrote about the ways that the analogy is flawed between continental drift and climae change.
And neither you nor Mike nor Steven have written nothing that elates to that either.

And now YOU are lying I NEVER said Dyson was wrong. I said YOU were wrong in calling me a lier about what he said. I SAID that the content of his ideas is always worth considering and I would be happy to discuss that with you, which you apparently are not interested in doing.
I also did NOT make it sound like Stephen was on an island doing it. I just responded to him bringing up the issue. if every time I respond to someones assertions on this site I have to make it clear whether others share those assertions or not it will get rather tedious.

You just made a logical statement. “The analogies are identical”. This after I pointed out to you in rather incomplete detail how they are NOT identical.
THEN you follow it with another statement that contradicts the first.
“in that climate scientists refuse to accept the obvious”.
that is ONE factor. When a comparison has many factors and you state that one of the factors is the same, it is not accurate to say they are identical.

Are you therefore agreeing with me that the differences I stated are accurate and in those ways the two situations have important differences? You don’t say anything about them, so I am not going to assume anything.

TonyD:
As has been shown many times in the past: It is possible for the major players in a scientific field to be totally wrong while a minority view turns out to be right.
When real world evidence points in the opposite direction of the consensus, the consensus is practicing Pathological Science.
You again are wrong and Steven is right.
Using Plate Tectonics or Geocentric is appropriate when discussing Climatology.

You once again are not addressing the specific ways that the analogy is innacurate, yet you say that Steve is right and I am wrong.
It is important to be clear about reality, or you get that old “doomed to repeat it” thing happening.
Are you saying that the differences I brought up are irrelevant or wrong? You don’t make that clear.
If irrelevant, as hard as it might be, you should just grit your teeth and say “Tony, you are right about those differences but they are irrelevant to the issue”. I would disagree and then we could examine why we think differently.

If they are wrong, you should explain the truth to me so that I can readjust my thinking.
it really isn’t very hard to be clear.

Also I am intrigued by the apparent disinclination to use, what I think is the more accurate analogy of Lysenkoism, which to me fits much better with your narrative here.
Case in point. Non-continental drift scientists did not redraw maps, or try to keep the discovery of the mantle a secret, or engage in the kind of fraud described here. They just ignored it, because there was no agency that could explain it. In lysenkoism, scientists actively manipulated and fabricated data to fit the facts to the ideology, and attacked any scientist that pointed out the inconsistencies.
isn’t that closer to what you say is going on now?

Actually Tony it is worse than that because the current crop of rent seeking pathological scientists created their so called theory out of thin air and created evidence to support it. The others show holding on to a believed theory when real evidence comes along to prove the old theory is false. The analogy being used is due to the Pathological scientists created a possible situation and convinced the politicians of its worth in spite of evidence that did not support what they were claiming. That became the consensus just like fixed continents and Geocentric dogma. The claims that the science is settled go against all practices in real science. That fits with the other examples .
Have they knowingly promoted false theories or do they actually believe what they are promoting? That determines whether it is ignorance or fraud. It is probably a combination of both as there are a lot of researchers that jumped on the ACC band wagon as a means to procure grants where the funding appeared to be going to the ACC crowd rather than real science.

While the Lysenkoism situation is evident in the start of ACC from the mid 2000s on the other examples are more representative of current Pathological practices.
The Jim Jones Peoples Temple is a good analogy for how some are taken in by the ACC Chicken Little Brigade as it has become more about Propaganda than science.
I always enjoy reading that the science is settled but we need more research funds to clear up the uncertainties we based all our projections on.

Mike,
that almost made sense. Where you lose me is in the jump from
“pathological scientists created their so called theory out of thin air and created evidence to support it”
to
“Have they knowingly promoted false theories or do they actually believe what they are promoting? That determines whether it is ignorance or fraud. It is probably a combination of both as there are a lot of researchers that jumped on the ACC band wagon as a means to procure grants where the funding appeared to be going to the ACC crowd rather than real science.”

there has been 30 years of more and more attention paid to this issue, with, as far as I know, no climatologist supporters of ACC changing their minds during that time, and all the major scientific associations and peer-reviewed journals jumping aboard . That has absolutely no parallel with any other historical scientific occurrence, except the Lysenko affair in Russia and China.
How you can consider the possibility that the above does not constitute fraud, and the idea that none in the entire scientific establishment are able to understand the science enough to detect the ridiculousness of the theory, and therefore might just be ignorant seems totally implausible to me. After all these are the same people that have overseen the most amazing technological and biological breakthroughs in human history.
It is all connected.

the Jim Jones analogy is pointedly ridiculous. the followers totally rejected religious orthodoxy and believed the rantings of a man without any outside support for his ideas. There were no panels of religious experts from the major religious groups that said Jones was right about everything.

Round Up The Usual Suspects
The Guardian report that introduced the UK public to extremely dangerous climate change has excelled with it’s Deep Throat style of investigative reporting. The newspaper somehow managed to extract unimagined insights from many reclusive experts and scientists who are usually cloistered in their academic ivory towers.

Oxford University – Myles Allen
Dangerous climate change depends on how fast the planet is warming up, not just how hot it gets…

University of Manchester – Kevin Anderson,
There is now little to no chance of maintaining the rise in global surface temperature at below 2C….

University of East Anglia – Rachel Warren
Drought and desertification would be widespread…

The Met Office – Richard Betts
A rise of 4C could be seen as soon as 2060….

The Met Office – Study
southern Europe and north Africa, where regional temperatures would rise 6-8C…

Royal Society
A new special collection of Royal Society journal papers

Kenya’s International Livestock Research Institute – Philip Thornton
the prognosis for agriculture and food security in a 4C world is bleak….

With GPS monitors we can measure the speed at which mountains grows. That’s how accurate it is. If we combine GPS with state of the art tide gauges, we can get very precise measurement of sea level rising in certain locations and correct for land movements.

Since rising sea levels are so important and the potential impacts huge in economic terms, why don’t the climate scientists want (fairly cheap compared to potential damages) accurate measurements I wonder?

I myself find the “hoax” and “fraud” discussions distracting if not completely beside the point.

Following Ockham’s razor, there is no need to imply a “hoax” or “fraud” when good old “scientific dogma” can be at play (simply, the innate ability of human being to follow the crowd, even when something as objective as science is involved).

Maurizio,
this actually seems very similar to the continental drift analogy. There was a new theory based on some evidence. it did not fit the established orthodoxy, and it was pretty much ignored until there was sufficient support for the alternate theory. then it was accepted and the model of history was revised. There was no attempt to falsify information or to corrupt the peer review process or to build a trillion dollar scientific boondoodle that will cripple the world economy and lead to devastating consequences for millions of people.
ACC is, according to just the information in this blog, indeed the biggest scientific fraud in history and cannot be accurately compared to other scientific revolutions. As is stated often here, a major reason why scientists don’t accept the truth is because it is their livelihood. So most must know what they are doing is fraud. That was not the case with the discovery of precambrian complex life forms.

In the case of preCambrian complex lifeforms, “sufficient support” was at the end not in terms of strength of evidence, rather the availability of a suitable authority open-minded enough to accept in 1959 what the rocks had been screaming since 1868.

In total there has been three previous attempts at getting the fossils to speak for themselves, but nobody was listening.

In hindsight, one might say there were plenty of “attempts to falsify information” (patently clear animal body traces passed as mineral formations), and at least one case of “corruption of the peer review process” (Nature magazine refusing to publish Sprigg’s letter, only to accept Glaessner’s, with the only difference being Glaessner’s fame). All that, it was done in perfectly good faith by people that should have known otherwise, but couldn’t.

And one might accept a falsehood for the simple fact that one has to accept that falsehood, because one doesn’t realize it’s a falsehood. There’s no need to invoke fraud in there either. People’s instinctive refusal to rely on their own judgement, “passing the buck” to a Higher Authority and thereby having a much easier life, will suffice.

See here for my comments on the IPCC sea level trick, including recent papers that show there is no acceleration.

Another amazing IPCC “classic” is the statement on page 413 of chapter 5,
“Interannual or longer variability is a major reason why no long-term acceleration of sea level has been identified using 20th-century data alone (Woodworth, 1990; Douglas, 1992). Another possibility is that the sparse tide gauge network may have been inadequate to detect it if present (Gregory et al., 2001).”
The possibility that the reason no acceleration has been observed might be because there is no acceleration does not seem to have occured to them!

one thing you may consider is the trillions of dollars fed into ‘climate science’.

banks, and large oil companies and corporations around them, stand to make more money than can be imagined through carbon tax and trading. they are throwing vast amounts of money behind climate alarmism. ‘climate science’ is basically a giant propaganda machine feeding the advertising campaign behind carbon tax and trade.

for instance i was shocked to see in my recent alumni letter that my alma mater has 2 people publishing alarmist apologetics. who is funding these positions? what do these people do when they are not writing alarmist propaganda? the only staff hours available would be teaching logic to english majors too stupid to pass ordinary math. the money machine pervades that deep.

a corollary is ‘globalism’- carbon tax and trade done at the international level is just another way to bypass national sovereignty. god knows the owning class despises being fettered by the rule of law. so that is a second motivation behind the colossal investment in ‘climate science’ alarmism.

The best description of the way the science has become corrupt is what Dr David Evans wrote:-

“The vast majority of scientists in the western climate establishment believe in the theory of man-made global warming. But here’s where it gets murky.
The believers basically took over western climate science in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and since then have:
 Fired anyone who expresses disagreement with their theory, or hindered their career (publishing, promotions, funding). Al Gore sacked a few skeptics in his time as Vice-President of the USA.85
 Hired into climate science positions only people who agreed with their theory.
Government-funded institutions are the only employers of “climate scientists”86, so once the believers were in control of the few bodies that determine funding of government science, it was game over. Believers got all the funding and positions; skeptics were forced out. There are no checks and balances in government funded science, no competition from privately-funded science in the climate area, no auditing87 as there is in financial matters, no regulation as with food and drugs, and no organized and funded opposition to test the theories and champion alternatives.
Within organizations that receive money for working on global warming, anyone who speaks out against the theory of man-made global warming gets peer pressure to shut up, because it threatens the funding and career prospects of colleagues. Scientists have mortgages and children too, and who else would employ a sacked or shunned climate scientist?
So the takeover is complete, and it’s never going to change. The good ‘ol boys are in charge for the foreseeable future.
The only current “climate scientists” who don’t pay lip service to the theory that global warming is predominately man-made are a few old blokes who were appointed before 1990 and refuse to budge (for example Richard Lindzen at MIT, now approaching 70).88 Ever notice that nearly all the climate scientists who speak out against the man-made theory are retired—no longer dependent on government climate money? For example, Joanne Simpson89, the first woman to receive a PhD in meteorology and “among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years”, worked for NASA but in retirement said:90
“ Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receive any funding, I can speak quite frankly. … virtually all of the claims are derived from either flawed data sets or imperfect models or both … But as a scientist I remain skeptical.”
31
Figure 24: Joanne Simpson, the first woman to receive a PhD in meteorology, only expressed her skepticism from retirement. She explicitly pointed out that could speak frankly because she was no longer funded by anyone.
I have received communications indicating that the level of support for the theory in some leading western climate institutions is much lower than the public believes, but they cannot say anything publicly, and urged me to continue criticizing the theory.
A huge number of scientists from other areas have seriously looked into climate science issues, and many (most?) have concluded that something is amiss or seriously amiss. It is obvious to many outsiders that the scientific method is not being observed in the climate sciences (for example, the missing hotspot—up next). Which is why so many prominent skeptics are scientist from other areas.”

Tony Duncan says:
November 29, 2010 at 7:53 am
No, incompetence is not the word for what you are describing. Only massive fraud.

Do not jump to the conclusion of fraud when incompetence explains the situation equally as well. Indeed, with literally trillions of dollars being pumped into this field, you are going to get 2 definite facts to occur.

#1 – more people will flock to the field since the money is easy pickings. And not all of them are going to know the difference between a snow flake and hail stone.
#2 – The size of the money grants is going to push many people that are either mariginally honest or just plain dishonest – to move their numbers to suit the preconceived conclusion that will continue the cash cow’s money teat in producing the milk of grants.

But in order to hide the incompetence and malfeasance, they will of course need their lap dogs to go around and poo poo the little kids that exclaim with astonishment “The Emperor is wearing no clothes!”.